John Gardner was born in Manchester and educated at Wellington College and Oxford University. After 6 years in the RAF, he joined the music staff of the Royal Opera House, leaving at the end of 1952 to pursue a freelance career as composer, teacher, pianist, and conductor. He has composed three symphonies, several large-scale cantatas, four operas, and a great variety of ensemble, solo and choral music as well as theatre music for the Old Vic and the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford.
